Students of poorer parents can’t rely on “Bank of Mum & Dad”. Academic evidence shows maintenance grants are crucial to widening opportunities to study at university.

Ahead of the Chancellor’s budget tomorrow (Wednesday 8th July 2015), two higher education experts comment on research into the impact of potential cuts to maintenance grants.

Professor Anne West, London School of Economics and Political Science:

“Maintenance grants are vitally important for students from low income families. It is unclear whether a reduction will affect the likelihood of such students going to university, but it is highly likely to mean that poorer students will have more debt than others as they do not have additional financial support from parents.

Our research found that more affluent parents are better able to shield their children from debt – by paying all or part of their higher education costs, by putting money aside for future property purchases, by being prepared to step in to support loan repayments or by using other financial resources to pay off the debt. Parents with lower household incomes were not able to shield their children from debt in similar ways.

In short, there are clear differences in the extent to which parents are able to mitigate the impacts of the student loan debt – more affluent parents are able to transmit their financial advantage to their children in a way that poorer parents are not, so creating a new emerging form of inequality, which a reduction in student maintenance grants will undoubtedly exacerbate.

It is also worth noting that the amount of student support available through grants and loans currently falls far short of most students’ expenditure. Sometimes the total value of a student financial support falls short of what the university charges for accommodation and food – so this is not to do with students’ extravagance.”

“Evidence shows that maintenance grants have had a positive impact on higher education participation and so people will rightly be concerned about their removal. However it is not simply a case of offering grants – the size of the grant will also matter.

The main financial barrier that poor students face when trying to go to university is whether they can afford to support themselves whilst studying. So offering a more generous loan that genuinely provides enough for poorer students to support themselves during university might be better than a very small or heavily means tested grant that does not provide sufficient income for enough students during their studies.“